Gaze behaviors during serve returns in tennis: A comparison between intermediate- and high-skill players

Camilo Sáenz-Moncaleano, Itay Basevitch, Gershon Tenenbaum

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

The authors studied gaze behaviors in high- and intermediate-skill tennis players while they performed tennis serve returns. Participants returned 40 serves in 4 serve locations while wearing a mobile eye tracker. The ball's flight path was deconstructed into 3 distinct locations (i.e., ball before bouncing on surface, the bounce area, and ball after bouncing on surface), and gaze behaviors along with quiet-eye (QE) onset and durations were recorded. Results revealed that (a) high-skill players exhibited better return shots than their lower skill counterparts, (b) high-skill players and high-score shots were characterized by longer fixation durations on the ball at prebounce, and (c) longer QE durations were observed for high-skill players and high-score shots. Findings provide valuable insight into the relationship between gaze behaviors, QE, and performance in fast-pace interceptive sports.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)49-59
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of Sport and Exercise Psychology
Volume40
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Apr 2018
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Expertise
  • Movement initiation
  • Quiet eye

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